Those We Leave Behind

Have you ever wished that you could be somebody else? Someone completely different? In a brand-new set of more favorable circumstances? Throw off your troubled (or even your nondescript) current life? Thats just how Paul Marchildon, in 1963, San Antonio, Texas, feltwhen everything was closing in on him. His marriage was quickly unraveling! His modest house was under foreclosure! And his car was about to be repossessed! In addition, he faced an impossible, romantic, situationvis-a-vis a woman with whom hed once worked. Paul was sorely tempted to steal $1,000 from his employer! He struggled to resist! Then, when his wife announced that she was taking his four childrenand moving in with her parents some 350 miles awayhe took the money! And ran! In his flight, Paul was intercepted by an angelspokesman for a small group of heavenly beings! The angel offered to give him a new body, a new voice, a new nameand to set him up in a beautiful condo, on the beautiful Pacific Ocean beach, in beautiful Oregon. More than a thousand miles from his untenable situation. There was just one highly problematic difficulty: the celestial deal consisted of those few angels faking Pauls death! Hed turn up as having died in an automobile crash! Truly, this would be a brand-new beginning! The troubled man accepted! It was only after he had become the youngerand far more handsome Taylor Young, that he begins worrying about those hed left behind! His widow ran off with some snake oil salesman, who won her over with a few lavish gifts. She joined a cult! That left the childrenall of whom Paul/Taylor missed terriblyin the hands of their grandparents. Grandma was dangerously harriedand Grandpa hated having the responsibility of having to raise kids that were not his own! Further, there was another womanone with whom Paul had had a romantic relationship. She was terribly upset by his running out. She is completely shatteredto learn of his death. Paul had also been close to her two children. None of this was helping! It was only after hed assumed his new lifestyle that the now-Taylor slowly learned of the many and varied difficulties confronting all these people from his past. The ones hed left behind. Obviously, he became more and more concerned about them! So he strived to do somethingto do whatever he canabout their troubling circumstances. The effect that his sudden journey back to Texas had on the two womenwith whom hed formed a relationship in Oregononly added to his rapidly accumulating difficulties. Trust me! A new beginning is not always what it would seem to be!